[WATSON, JAMES. B.1928.]


CRICK, FRANCIS. 1916-2004; ET AL. "General Nature of the Genetic Code for Proteins," pp 1227-1232, IN: Nature, Volume 192, No. 4809, December 30, 1961 [Complete Issue]. London: "Nature," Macmillan & Co, 1961. 4to (265 x 195 mm). Publisher's illustrated wrappers. Provenance: Marillac College Library (stamp to cover)."In 1961, Crick, Barnett, Brenner, and Watts-Tobin (Crick et al., 1961) designed an elegant experimental strategy to determine the nature of the genetic code. Remarkably, they reached the correct conclusion despite the absence of technology to analyze and compare DNA and protein sequences. The initial description of the linear duplex structure of DNA by James Watson and Francis Crick in the early 1950s was a truly monumental advance. At the time, technology did not exist for isolating a gene, determining its nucleotide sequence, or relating such a sequence to the amino acid sequence of the corresponding protein....In their landmark 1961 Nature paper entitled 'General Nature of the Genetic Code for Proteins,' Francis Crick, Leslie Barnett, Sydney Brenner, and Richard Watts-Tobin (Crick et al., 1961) finally solved the riddle. They concluded correctly that the genetic code is a triplet code, the code is degenerate, triplets are not overlapping, there are no commas, and each nucleotide sequence is read from a specific starting point" (Yanofsky, "Establishing the Triplet Nature of the Genetic Code," Cell, Vol 128, pp 815-818, 2007. A particularly bright, fresh copy, with just the single stamp to the cover. Garrison-Morton 756.8.